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Optimized Sensory Units Integrated in the Chiton Shell

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Abstract

The first step for animals to interact with external environment is to sense. Unlike vertebrate animals with flexibility, it is challenging for ancient animals that are less flexible especially for mollusca with heavy shells. Chiton, as an example, has eight overlapping shells covering almost the whole body, is known to incorporate sensory units called aesthetes inside the shell. We used micro-computed tomography combined with quantitative image analysis to reveal the optimized shell geometry to resist force and the aesthetes’ global distribution at the whole animal levels to facilitate sense from diverse directions both in the seawater and air. Additionally, shell proteomics combined with transcriptome reveals shell matrix proteins responsible for shell construction and potentially sensory function, highlighting unique cadherin-related proteins among mollusca. Together, this multi-level evidence of sensory units in the chiton shell may shed light on the formation of chiton shells and inspire the design of hard armor with sensory function.

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Data Availability

The raw data of micro-CT were stored in the MorphoBank and can be accessed through http://morphobank.org/permalink/?P4139. The transcriptome data were deposited in the Sequence Read Archive of NCBI with accession number SAMN21190197-SAMN21190202. The proteomics data were provided in the supplementary materials.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Shi Wen, the application specialist of Carl Zeiss company, for her help in the nano-CT test and analysis.

Funding

Chuang Liu received support from the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province BK20210363, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities B200201065, and Jiangsu Innovation Talent Program JSSCBS20210250. Jiangliang Huang received support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants 42106091.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Oceanography, Hohai University, Xikang Road, Nanjing, 210098, Jiangsu, China

    Chuang Liu, Haipeng Liu & Xin Ji

  2. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai, 519082, Guangdong, China

    Jingliang Huang

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  1. Chuang Liu
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Contributions

C.L. conceived the project, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. H.P.L., X.J., J.L.H., and C.L., performed experiment. J.L.H. contributed to data analysis and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Chuang Liu.

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Liu, C., Liu, H., Huang, J. et al. Optimized Sensory Units Integrated in the Chiton Shell. Mar Biotechnol 24, 380–392 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-022-10114-2

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